Let's K12 Better

I grow mint in a box on my window... 2 kinds- peppermint and spearmint. As I began clipping leaves I randomly said... “Thank you gatherers for figuring out which plants were medicinal and which ones would kill us”. It must've been a wild time... figuring all that out while watching over children and trying to survive.

We think of the hunters a lot when we reference our primal, cultural, ancestral past. True, it takes a lot to go out and bring food back and not die in the process... But what about those mad scientists who had kids running about all day. They could've sat around doing nothing, waiting in fear for their mates to return with food... Sometimes returning empty handed. They could have sat around waiting for the next time the clan moved behind the herds. They had kids to protect from predators and old people to look after... but instead their multi-tasking, trial and error, supplemental contributions eventually influenced our move toward animal domestication and the agricultural system of human societies.

Hunters and gatherers are an essential part of the historical story of modern day humanity. And although men have a relatively important part to the continuance of our evolutionary survival; honestly it was women who moved us out of our mode of surviving into thriving.... Like the foods and medicines we get? Thank women and their mitochondrial DNA. Living in a city, suburb, neighborhood or community? Thank a woman and her mitochondrial DNA... It was women; women who said, it's enough! I'm not going to sit in fear and wait for my mate to bring back food, I'm going to supplement our meals so that there’s enough to go around. I'm going to make sure we have enough to survive on. I’m going to figure out what can drop this fever, remember what the plant looks like and find it again and again and again. I’m going to pass on my explorative and scientific knowledge to my daughters so that it can continue to live on beyond me... Thank you gatherers. We don't give you enough credit.

Sometimes women don't know that they possess so much power. It's so easy to forget, but every woman has it in her. The ingenuity and the proficiency to go out and explore; bring back knowledge and share it, so it lives beyond her. Don't wait for someone to hand you and your children the leftovers or come home empty handed, go make something for yourself. Go gather knowledge. Submerse yourself in trial and error. You never know what will happen. Live and be the evolutionary catalyst that you are. Thank you Gatherers.